


The Family Hearth

by Englishtutor



Series: The Other Doctor Watson [27]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Family, Gen, Understanding Relationships, dealing with death, light - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englishtutor/pseuds/Englishtutor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly has a new job, a new life. Why is it a person must sometimes lose what she has in order to truly appreciate it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Family Dynamics

She sat in the little pub, picking at her food meditatively, and wondered what she should do. Molly’s new job, her new life, in Edinburgh was exciting and fulfilling and she liked her co-workers and enjoyed her position. But sometimes, when she missed her old life, her old friends, she would treat herself with a visit to this pub on her lunch break; the pub where she and Greg and Mary had lunched together that first day in her new home. Today she had even managed to get the same table they had taken that day two months earlier; and she could see them in her mind’s eye, tucking into fish and chips and cheerfully discussing the murder case they had stumbled upon the evening before.

Molly toyed with her phone. Greg had been contacting her in some way every evening since she’d moved away—until last night. For two months, he had tried to call every night, or if he was working he would at least send a text describing what he was doing: “drowning victim, Serpentine”, or “body in Marble Arch Station.” But last night—nothing. She wondered if it would seem pushy or obsessive of her to call him. Or she could just text him and ask if he was okay. Mary would know what to do. But Mary had not been answering her texts since yesterday morning: another worrisome development. Molly sighed and turned her phone over and over in her hands. She needed Mary’s advice. Why was her friend not answering? Mary was always there when Molly needed her!

As she sat, vacillating, her phone rang and Greg’s number popped up on the screen. Relieved, Molly snatched it up.

“Hey!” she exclaimed happily, and then hoped she did not sound over-eager.

“Molls.” Greg’s voice sounded hollow and rough with exhaustion, and . . . . something else. Something like . . . grief? Molly’s scalp prickled with terror. But surely he was just calling to say he was sorry he’d not called last night?

“What is it? What . . . what’s wrong?” she demanded, her heart thudding with dread.

“I’m sorry—I . . . I ought to have called yesterday. I didn’t know the bloody sodding press would get hold of this so soon--damn them all to hell! I wanted to be sure to tell you first. . . . I wanted time to fly up and tell you in person. Damn it. . . . ” Greg was rambling, and Molly’s anxiety grew. Had something happened to Sherlock, or to John? They were always throwing themselves into dangerous situations. A tragedy was bound to happen one day. . . .

“I haven’t seen any news,” she interrupted him, impatient with worry. “I don’t know what you’re . . . what you’re on about. What’s happened?”

He was silent a long, horrible moment, and she clenched her fist, driving her nails into her palm as she waited. “I couldn’t talk yesterday,” he said at last. “I couldn’t . . . . Oh god, I couldn’t say the words . . . .” His breath sounded loud in her ear. “Molls, Mary’s . . . gone.”

Mary! Of all the things she had feared he would say, this had not crossed her mind. “Gone,” she gasped, in shock, knowing full well what he meant; and yet she asked, “Kidnapped?”

“No. Well, yes, initially.” Greg had got hold of himself and he sounded more in control. “Her clinic was robbed, and the bastards took her hostage. She didn’t . . . didn’t . . . .”

“No!” she cried, cutting him off, suddenly furious. “No, don’t say it! It isn’t true!” She pressed the phone against her mouth to stop herself from sobbing aloud. It was absurd. It couldn’t be real. Mary was more alive than anyone Molly had ever met. It was impossible that she should be dead. 

“I know,” he soothed, understanding. “I know. It doesn’t make sense, does it? I can’t quite make myself believe it, either; but I saw her . . . . Oh, god, Molly, I saw her . . . .” he trailed off and was quiet so long she was afraid he had rung off. In the silence she felt an agonized scream welling up in her chest; but this was a public place. People were looking at her. She struggled to get hold of herself. 

“Greg?” she whispered timidly. 

“Yeah.” He sounded so weary, so bleak. She could hear the rasping sound of his hand rubbing his unshaven face. “She didn’t go easily, Molls. She took one of them with her—stabbed him with that knife of hers. The other one—well, John and Sherlock caught up with the killer this morning. I’m in hospital with him now. When they release him, I’ll take him into custody.”

Molly understood. “I’m surprised you’re not in the morgue with him,” she commented grimly, amazed at how calm she was able to sound, while her emotions roiled within her.

“It was a near thing,” he admitted, his voice quiet, obviously trying not to be overheard. “I think, if I’d not shown up when I did, I might be taking John into custody for murder right now instead of this bastard. Molly,” he sounded suddenly like a lost and frightened little boy. “Will you come? Can you . . . .?”

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “I’ll be there as soon as ever I can!” He needed her, she knew. He must be the strong, supportive friend to John and Sherlock now, but who would be strong for him? What he had seen had horrified him, and who could possibly offer him comfort? And she needed him, as well. Mary Watson was her best friend, the person she would always turn to for support and strength. To whom could Molly go now for help? Not to Mary’s grieving husband; certainly not to the consulting detective. She could only imagine what sort of shape they were in. She and Greg would have only each other now for consolation. “I’ll let you know when I book a flight,” she told him.

“I’ll meet you at Heathrow,” he told her. “I have to go—they’re finished with this bastard here. I need to take him in and process him. Damn, the vultures are gathered outside! How did they find us? I’ll see you soon, love.” He hung up abruptly, leaving her sitting in the pub, alone, feeling light-headed as if she were in a dream. There in the chair across from her, Mary had sat, only two months ago, scarfing down a slice of pie with the same joyful exuberance with which Mary Watson did everything in her life. To imagine a world without Mary in it seemed ridiculous, colourless, surreal, empty. Dull.

“The mysterious Mary Watson, enigmatic wife of detective blogger Dr John Watson, was found dead yesterday,” the telly suddenly blared. The pub owner had turned the sound up, intrigued by the news of this celebrity death. Molly raised her eyes to the screen to meet the sparkling blue of Mary’s mischievous gaze—an old photo from a university year book the media had somehow dredged up for the occasion. It hurt to look at her, so far away and long ago.

“Officials say she died at the hands of this man.” Suddenly there was live footage outside a hospital, and Molly stared at the man who had taken the life of her best friend, his head swathed in bandages, his lip cut and swollen, and his jaw puffing up into a huge, colourful bruise. Officers on either side of him tugged him along and put him into a panda car, none too gently: Mary Watson had been well-liked amongst the Yarders. Behind them, she could see Greg striding, looking completely professional and in control, a rather less savage bruise blossoming on his jaw. John had had the presence of mind, she thought grimly, to pull his punch a bit when addressing his friend. She realized that she had not asked after John or Sherlock while talking to Greg, but it did not take a detective to deduce John Watson’s state of mind.

The news reader continued, his intensity of tone giving Molly a sharp pain in her head. “There has been no official statement released from the authorities or from the family of the deceased. But a co-worker of Mrs. Watson has stepped forward to give us some details of the events that led to the untimely death of this sometime companion of the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.”

Another switch of scene, and a cheerful female reporter was standing in front of Mary’s clinic with a cheerful man in a white coat. “Dr Blenkensop, is there any indication that this crime has any connection with Sherlock Holmes?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the doctor hedged. He didn’t even know Mary was John Watson’s wife, Molly thought, annoyed. He didn’t know anything about her. She always tried to stay under the radar. “I mean, why would they target THIS clinic, out of the all the clinics in London? Suspicious, I say.” He had been in profile, but now he turned his head and Molly could see the colourful, swollen bruise he was sporting on his jaw. More of John’s handiwork. She didn’t care what this idiot had to say, if John had felt it necessary to punch him.

“Tell us what happened,” the reported prompted, and Molly found herself rooted to her chair, in spite of herself.

“Well, this chap runs in waving a gun, doesn’t he? And takes all the medicines we had on hand in the place. Someone must’ve pressed the silent alarm, ‘coz pretty quick we hear the police sirens in the distance. This chap panics, grabs one of our patients, some little boy, for a hostage, and starts to run out, waving his gun around at us all. Well, not one of us could move--we were all paralyzed with fear for our lives, weren’t we? All but Mary Watson. She walks right up to this chap, blocks the door so he can’t leave, and won’t let the chap alone until he takes her as hostage instead of the child. Bravest thing I ever saw in my life. Dr Watson, she was a saint, that’s what I say.” He rubbed his jaw, looking aggrieved. “She must have been, to put up with that brute of a husband of hers. . . .”

“So there you have it, folks,” the reporter interrupted quickly. “Dr Mary Watson, wife of the famous blogger John Watson, associate of internet sensation, Sherlock Holmes, and a true hero in her own right—dead at age 32, tragically murdered whilst saving the life of a child.” 

Another still shot, a picture from a news article several years old, flashed onto the screen: Mary and John, holding hands, with Sherlock in the background stooping over a body. It had been a rare, unguarded moment, the trio unaware of the presence of camera-bearing intruders—Sherlock’s expression was ecstatic, and the Watsons were gazing at each with undisguised admiration. It was a beautiful shot. Molly turned her face away.

Hitting a button on her phone, she called a colleague at the medical college. “I’m sorry, I have to take a few days off,” she heard herself say, her voice sounding as if it belonged to someone else. “There’s been a death . . . a death in the family.”

Why had it taken her so long, so much distance, such an event, to make her understand that this was what Mary was to her—family?


	2. Family Illumination

She’d had to take a late afternoon flight, which had been subsequently delayed, and she thought with chagrin that taking a train to London might actually have been faster. But at last she arrived at Heathrow, and there was Greg at the gate to meet her. They looked at each other silently, uncertainly; and then Greg opened his arms (a thing he’d never have done under any other circumstances) and she walked right into them (a thing she’d never had dared to do before this day) and pressed her hands and her face against his chest with a sigh of relief. Condolences from co-workers had meant nothing to her, coming from strangers who had not known Mary. But here, at last, was someone who had loved her friend and understood and shared in the monumental loss. Molly had not realized how tense she had been all day until that moment, when in Greg’s embrace she could at last let the tension go. Neither spoke, content to grieve quietly together for a time.

But they were standing in the airport, crowds bustling by them, jostling and elbowing their way along. And so they fetched Molly’s luggage and went to Greg’s car, still companionably silent.

“Would you like to go straight to Baker Street?” he asked at last as he started the engine. “I talked to Mrs Hudson on the phone just now--she would like you to stay with her while you’re in town, if you don’t mind. She has a horror of being alone just now.”

“So have I,” Molly admitted. “But, what about . . . what about you?” she added shyly. She could imagine that Greg would not care to be alone either, after what he had seen.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Not certain of my reception on Baker Street just now. Scotland Yard let them down. Except briefly for the arrest this morning, I haven’t really seen them since . . . since I dropped John off there yesterday.”

Molly frowned sympathetically. “They don’t hold you responsible, surely!” she declared stoutly. “Mary would never stand for it. How . . . how is John doing, though?” she added hesitantly.

“He’s a soldier, through and through. I’ve never seen a man more enraged, but he keeps it in check. Most of the time,” he added wryly, rubbing his jaw. “Yesterday, he was practically catatonic with anger, if you can imagine such a state.”

Molly reached over boldly and touched the bruise on his cheek. “Except when he felt it necessary to lash out,” she observed. 

Greg smiled grimly. “I deserved it. I thought he ought not to see her . . . like that . . . you know. I tried to stop him going to the crime scene. He took exception to my interference. I should have known better than to try to come between John Watson and his wife.”

Molly was all too familiar with the damage a bullet at point-blank range could do. “I don’t blame you for trying,” she said. “I’d have done the same. Bad?”

“Closed casket,” he said tersely, jaws tight with emotion. She bit her lip, trying not to picture her friend in such a state.

“I saw the news coverage. She saved a little boy’s life, then?” 

He nodded, his face darkening. “Fifteen other adults in that clinic, and she was the only one who had the courage to stand up to the man. One of them had the audacity to tell John how brave he thought Mary was, and John decked him, thank god! I wanted to kill him, myself, the useless coward,” he growled, muttering angrily. “I wanted to throw them all in jail for letting her go without trying to stop him. Instead, I had to steer John away from them, protect them from him. God help me, sometimes I hate this job.”

Molly murmured sympathetically. “And . . . and Sherlock?” she asked after a short silence.

Greg pulled a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He was all right as long as he had something constructive to do—hunt out the murderer. But now? Mrs Hudson says he’s completely unresponsive.”

“But, that’s not really unusual, for him,” Molly noted thoughtfully. “And, what about you, Greg? You’ve been running since it happened, haven’t you? You look exhausted.”

He looked at her and pulled a grim face. “I was up all night looking for the perp. Couldn’t have slept if I wanted to, though. Every time I close my eyes, I see her lying there, almost unrecognizable. I’ve seen worse in my time, I know,” he said added bleakly. “But to see her so violated in that filthy alley and to know what she’d endured . . . .” His voice trailed off.

“It’s different when it’s someone you love,” she said softly, and he nodded.

Mrs Hudson, red-faced and bleary-eyed, was glad to see Molly and already had her tea ready in 221A. “I can’t seem to stop crying,” she apologized, mortified. “The tears just come and I can’t make them stop.”

“It’s okay, Mrs Hudson,” Molly hugged her gently. “You loved her. It’s best to let it out, isn’t it? Is John upstairs? Should I go up?”

“He fell asleep in his armchair, the poor dear,” Mrs Hudson said in a hushed voice, as if speaking of him could wake him from downstairs. “He never slept last night. He’s exhausted. So are we all.” She led Molly and Greg into her kitchen to give them their tea. There sat Sherlock at the little table, staring blankly out the window at Mrs Hudson’s bins. He didn’t move when Molly greeted him, and he didn’t reply. Mrs Hudson bustled about, working around him.

Molly felt relieved by the normality and the stability of being in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen with her friends. Although tears still ran from her eyes, the motherly lady served tea and biscuits in proper style and fussed over them lovingly. She and Greg and Molly discussed the funeral arrangements and the food for the reception afterwards, taking care of the business of life with the fortitude and practicality one would expect of ordinary, decent folk. 

“We mustn’t wear black,” Mrs Hudson observed as she went back to her oven to remove a cake she was making for the funeral reception. “Mary would hate that, wouldn’t she?”

“Oh, she would!” Molly agreed. “When I was packing, I could just hear her telling me to wear the pink frothy thing that makes me look like a confection.” They all chuckled fondly, all but Sherlock. It felt good to remember Mary’s quirky sense of humour and distinctive personality.

“She had quite the sweet tooth, our Mary,” Mrs Hudson smiled gently. “’Have a drop of tea with your sugar, dear,’ I said to her many a time. And she was such a one for baking! The lovely cakes she would make!” They all gazed dolefully at the cake Mrs Hudson had just set out to cool.

“She would bring a cake to my office every week,” Greg told them. “I expect she meant for me to share with my team. Sometimes I actually did.”

Molly squeezed his arm, sharing in the pleasantness of his memory. Then she was distracted by a movement in the doorway to the kitchen. 

Mary’s Captain looked ten years older and weary beyond human endurance, but he stood straight and perfectly composed, even smiling a bit at her. “Good to see you, Molly. We’ve missed you,” he said quietly.

“Oh, John!” she gasped, and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and horrifying herself by bursting into tears. She had been dry-eyed all that long, dark day, but now she wept and could not stop. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” was all she could manage to say between painful sobs.

And John patted her back and gently murmured comforting words to her. “I know. I know. It’s good you’re here. Mary loved you, you know. She bragged about you all the time.” It seemed wrong that the grieving husband should be required to comfort her, but oddly it seemed to help him to gain strength.

“My dear, I wish you had slept longer,” Mrs Hudson fussed over him. “You could use the rest. There’s not enough room in my little kitchen for us all—let’s go into the sitting room. Greg, carry the tea tray in for us, would you dear? And Molly, please get John a cup.” 

As the two men followed their hostess out of the room, Molly heard John say, “I’m glad you’re here, Greg. I meant to thank you for . . . for what you did earlier today.”

“My not arresting you for assault, you mean?” Greg said lightly, but Molly heard the relief behind the words --- John did not hold all Scotland Yard accountable for his wife’s demise after all. “No worries, mate. I think I might have helped you cover it up if you’d killed the bastard.”

Molly marvelled at her friends—so strong in the face of tragedy. They were determined to carry on to the best of their ability with the business of everyday life in spite of their great loss. Mary would have been proud. 

Only Sherlock sat morosely, ignoring them. Molly lingered in the kitchen, longing to help him. Imagine! Ordinary Molly Hooper, trying to help a genius detective to cope! But unlike their “ordinary” friends, Sherlock seemed unable to deal with his loss.

How had she been so dazzled by the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes that she had not seen the illumination of the other people in her life, or in her very self? After being away for a while now, she had come to understand that Sherlock was like the sun—powerfully and relentlessly bright, impossible to ignore. But when the sun is on the other side of the earth (when a girl is in Edinburgh and the Sun is ensconced in London), it might as well not even exist for all the use it was. 

And now, witnessing the dejected detective slumped in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen looking lost and bewildered, she realized that even in at its height, there were shadows the noonday sun could not penetrate---dark places in the world that sunlight never touched. Sherlock had met an enemy he could not out-think or out-manoeuvre. His brilliance had failed him and he was locked in a dark dungeon of grief; no amount of deductive reasoning could show him the way of escape. Here only the humble light of a candle or a torch could give aid, and Mrs Hudson, and Greg, and even Molly could be a tiny spark of light in the hopeless slough of sorrow in which they had all become trapped. 

She felt ashamed now that she had allowed her obsession with the sun that was Sherlock to eclipse the beauty of the light her friends had to offer. Mrs Hudson: a warm and fragrant candle—a bit old-fashioned, perhaps, but enhancing the world with her merry, welcoming glow.

John: a bright beacon; a searchlight, seeking out and illuminating truth; a selfless spotlight, drawing attention always to others and never to himself.

Greg: a torch in the dark places of the world; nearly invisible in bright daylight, but utterly essential and oh-so-comforting where ever the sun failed to shine.

And Molly herself—could she be a light in the shadows, too? She could but try.

“How are you, Sherlock?” she asked gently.

“I’m fine,” he said shortly, not looking at her.

She knelt by his chair and put a hand on his arm.

“It’s okay to be sad,” she told him gently. “It’s okay to feel helpless and angry. And it’s good to grieve for someone who is worth grieving for. It’s those emotions that make us stronger, if we let them. Don’t try to go around them or deny them—you have to work your way through them.”

He gazed out the window. Mrs Hudson’s bins were so fascinating. “Don’t be absurd,” he droned emotionlessly.

“I know, it sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it? But not everything in life is logical,” she said.

He turned hollow eyes to hers. “You sound like Mary,” he observed quietly.

Molly smiled sadly. “Thank you. Mary was the wisest, most courageous person I ever knew. You could do worse than to listen to her.”

He looked at her silently for a long moment. “You’re right. I’m not fine,” he said at last, his voice thick with unaccustomed emotion. 

“There,” she reassured him. “There’s a start.” She stood up and pulled him to his feet. “Come in and be with us,” she coaxed. “We’ll all be not-fine together. Mary would want us to. Strength in numbers, you know.” And the light of her words seemed to reach him; he joined them for tea.

000

She stood by the graveside with John and watched Greg mill about, taking care of everyone—offering his handkerchief to Mrs Hudson; putting a comforting hand on John’s shoulder as the preacher spoke words of hope; wrapping a supportive arm around Molly’s waist just when she most needed it. Now he was with Sherlock, a good distance away from the rest of the crowd of mourners, speaking to him with an earnest expression on his face. All attention was focused on Mary’s Captain, except for Greg’s; he truly understood that Sherlock’s loss was as great as John’s. To her amazement, she saw the grieving genius manage a tiny smile at something Greg said. Greg Lestrade was a miracle worker.

 

“Thank you, Mary,” Molly whispered, “for bringing us all together and making us a family.” For the light that Mary had given had been that of a hearth-fire—beautiful and welcoming, gathering everyone who knew her to herself to bask in her warm glow. And as they drew nearer to her, they inevitably drew nearer to one another. Molly realized that she had known D.I. Lestrade for two years before meeting Mary without ever caring that he had a first name. She realized that she had seen Sherlock’s friend hanging about with him for months without ever thinking that he might have any name at all. It took Mary Morstan Watson to open Molly’s eyes to the fact that there were other worthy people in her world, other sources of light besides the sun, and she would be eternally grateful to her for that.

“Ready to go?” Greg was beside her now, offering her his hand. 

It was time to move on. She slipped her hand into his, and together they walked to the waiting car.


End file.
